(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Following a complained filed by gpl-violations.org which holds the copyright for parts of the Linux kernel, the Munich District Court found Skype in infringement of the General Public Licence (GPL) terms.

Skype offered SMC WSKP100 VoIP telephone produced by the Spanish manufacturer SMC Networks, running with Linux, without including the source code and the GPL license text. Later on, the manufacturer included a supplementary text to the product referring to the use of GPL software and containing URLs to source code downloads but this was not considered good enough. The court declared that the information was not concrete enough and that making the source code available on the Internet was sufficient only in

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

After filing a case to the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio against the Italian Ministry of Work for launching a call for tenders where only Microsoft software was considered as eligible, Italian NGO Assoli (Associazione Software Libero) is criticizing again its Government.

The problem arose when the Government - specifically the Ministry for University and Research, headed by Mr.Fabio Mussi (Left democrats) and the Ministry for Innovation in the Public Administration, headed by Mr. Luigi Nicolais (Left democrats) - announced an official agreement with Microsoft Italia whose main goals are "education/training, technology transfer and facilitation of research projects".

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Probably the most important conference in Romania on open source and free software took place at the end of the last week - on 18-19 May 2007 in Brasov. The eLiberatica 2007 conference was organized by a new group of IT specialists called Romanian Open Source and Free Software Initiative (ROSI).

The conference aimed at bringing community leaders from around the world to talk about the hottest topics in FLOSS movement demonstrating the advantages of adopting, using and developing Open Source and Free Software solutions.

The international participants that included Monty Widenius, the main engineer and supervisor of MySQL, Brian Behlendorf, one of the Apache Project initiators or Zak Greant, representing Mozilla Foundation, provided

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Following the case filed by Associazione per il Software Libero (Assoli - Association for Free Software) to the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio-Rome, the Italian Ministry of Work and Social Politics has withdrawn the call for tenders for Microsoft Licences.

The Department of Technological Innovation of the Ministry of Work published on 21 February 2006 in the Official Journal of the Italian Republic a call for tenders for the supply of Microsoft licenses in the value of approx. 4 540 000 Euros.

Only 11 Italian companies, considered as large Account Resellers by Microsoft were qualified to participate in the tender although the Italian law requires the public administration institutions to compare all

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

Study on the Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU. Final Report. (20.11.2006)
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.p...

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

The conference "The Role of Open Source Software for the Development of Information Society" was held in Yerevan, capital of Armenia from 31 October to 1 November 2006. The conference aimed at the exchange of experience in open source promotion policy and in the use of open source software in specific areas such as public administration and education.

The Conference was organised by the Center for Information Law and Policy (CILP) and was attended by representatives of non-governmental organizations from Eastern Europe (Macedonia and Bulgaria), CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan), and Armenian officials responsible for the development of information policies.

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

OSS Watch performed a survey during February and March 2006 on UK Higher Education and Further Education institutions with the purpose to get an image of the present situation of open source software (OSS) in the target group. A comparison was made with the previous similar report drafted in 2003 and future work areas were identified for OSS Watch activities.

The survey was carried out by Dr. Ellen J. Helsper. Helsper, a Tutorial Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, considered also the reasons for using OSS and the contribution to the OSS community by the target group.

Having received answers from 23 institutions, the present study shows a positive trend in the use on OSS in both types of institutions.

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

TACD (Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogues) organized a conference under the title "New Relationships Between Creative Communities and Consumers" in Paris on 19-20 June 2006. Participants represented a wide range of interests, including both artists' and consumers' organizations, but also WIPO and the European Commission.

Several panels explored problems and possibilities in creators' and users' rights in fields as various as gene research, drug development, software production, entertainment industry, documentary films and scholarly publishing. The breadth of discussion and ideas presented was impressive.

One recurring theme was that creators and users of intellectual works are